SHAMBOLYMPICS: Why is the boss of the East London Mosque on the management board of Locog?

Britain’s newspapers have been full, over the last few days, with stories of the incompetence of G4S, a security company chosen by Locog (the London Olympic Games organising body) and then allowed to drift ten times over budget. The person at the top of this wobbly human pyramid of disaster (which, to be fair, she inherited from the Blairite Correct Tendency) is the Home Secretary, Theresa May. When it comes to the UK’s security as a whole (let alone Games security, which has already been compromised by G4S’s shortcomings) the buck stops at Theresa May. But two years into the job, one is left wondering why neither Ms May nor the security services have acted to remove an Islamist Trojan Horse on the Locog management board.

Go to the depositions about Locog at the parliament UK website, and you will see an entry for Dr Mohammed Bari, a prominent British Muslim. It’s all jolly reassuring stuff: he trained as an Air Force officer in Bangladesh, he is patron of this and Fellow of that and a Dr of something or other.

But the entry hides what Dr Bari is really all about. For he has been the subject of doubt and controversy for many years – and the subject of penetrating investigations by award-winning Daily Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan . Until fairly recently, Mohammed Bari was on the Muslim Council of Great Britain (MCB), the ‘moderate’ organisation that took three weeks and much arm-twisting before it condemned the 2005 London bombings.

In Spring 2011, the MCB dictated to its flock that ‘not covering the face is a shortcoming’, and argued that all Muslims advocating the uncovered female face must be guilty of rejecting Islam. The diktat was signed by…..Mohammad Abdul Bari, still at that time the General Secretary of the MCB. Others doing the same were Imran Waheed, spokesman of the extremist group Hizb ut Tahrir, and other fundamentalists like Haitham al-Haddad of the hardline East London Mosque (ELM). The ELM’s chief imam, Abdul Qayum, was also a signatory.

Today, Dr Mohammed Bari is Chairman of the ELM. For some time the Mosque has been notorious for its protection and apologaeia offered to the extremes Islamists of the hardline Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE). Bari has been a central part of the controversy around both the ELM and IFE because, to be blunt, he makes a lot of airy promises, but doesn’t actually do anything to control or ban the nutters in his midst. As Gilligan wrote in a seminal piece of June 15th last year,

‘On 10 November 2007, the mosque’s chairman, Muhammad Abdul Bari, told my newspaper: “If I hear of a specific preacher who is inciting hatred, I will ban him from preaching.” In the six months after this rousing statement, the numerous “specific preachers inciting hatred” not banned from speaking at the mosque included Khalid Yasin, who describes Jews as “filth” and says gay people should be killed; Abdurraheem Green, who says that a husband has the right to administer “some type of physical force… a very light beating” to his wife; and Bilal Phillips, described by the US government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the World Trade Center bombing (Phillips was officially invited to deliver the Friday sermon.) In subsequent months, the hit parade continued with (among many others) Gharait Baheer, spokesman for a leading ally of the Taliban; Murtaza Khan (who told his audience that women who use perfume should be flogged); Haitham al-Haddad, who thinks music is a “fake and prohibited message of love and peace;” and Anwar al-Awlaki, a key recruiter for al-Qaeda whose talk was advertised with a poster showing Manhattan under bombardment. On 6 December 2010, Dr Bari again claimed: “The controversial speakers who were able, in the past, to speak via third-party bookings of our facilities (circumventing our procedures) have now all been banned. All accusations of ‘extremism’ links are also historical.” Alas, the very next month – on 23 January 2011 – Haitham al-Haddad was back speaking at the mosque (as well as his views on music, Haitham also believes that “the conflict between Islam and the enemies of Islam is an ongoing conflict…we should pay the price of this victory from our blood, and Muslims are ready to do so.”) And on 25 February, we had the homophobic preacher Uthman Lateef plus Hamza Tzortzis, who states: “We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even of freedom.” Sounds pretty “controversial” to me, Dr Bari! The East London Mosque’s response to accusations of extremism has three stages. First there are the injured protestations of its deep commitment to community cohesion, democracy, etc, often accompanied by straightforward lying – in 2009, for instance, the mosque’s assistant director, Shaynul Khan, claimed that “Anwar Al-Awlaki did not give a lecture via video link at an event held at the East London Mosque.” Then there are silly legal threats from its libel lawyers, again often based on lies: tedious, but perfectly easy to see off if you know what you’re doing. Finally, if none of that works and their backs are absolutely against the wall, the mosque will crank out one of their statements claiming they’ve banned hate preachers. The supply of bad guys will dry up for a month or two, then as soon as the coast is clear they’ll start creeping back again.’

A classic example of this criticism-deflection strategy occurred only nine months ago in October 2011, when Bari said perceptions of Muslims were so negative there was a danger that people’s minds would be “poisoned as they were in the Thirties” by Nazis. If you want to head off accusations of dictatorial behaviour, accuse your enemies of being dictatorial. Within moments of making the remark, Dr Bari then went on to call for Britain to adopt Islamic customs like arranged marriage, and to ban the drinking of alcohol in public places. I think there might be a clue in that statement as to why ordinary British people of all races and religions have doubts about the sincerity of Islamic claims to be liberal and democratic.

I have pointed out many times that Islam’s biggest image problem in the UK is its tendency towards disguised fellow-travelling with autocratic and violent elements of Islamism. Even the very word ‘Islamist’ is a pure clerical spin word invented after 2005, in a somewhat laughable and clumsy attempt to ‘separate’ Islamists from Islamics. For many years, the MCB was depicted by New Labour as the ‘reasonable’ face of Islam, but this too is largely a fiction. Four days before the 2005 London attacks, its former director Iqbal Sacranie told a Sunday Times journalist that radical, violent Islam was “an invention of the racist Western media”. Whenever programmes appeared on television about Islam, Sacranie was always to be seen – accompanied by bullying legal threat-letters – attemping to have total control over the programmes, or if necessary have them removed. He was central to the scheme to persuade New Labour’s Useful Idiot tendency to make all criticism of Islam illegal “whether it be true or not” from 2003 to 2005. Literally dozens of media writers and journalists have clashed with Mr Sacranie, and few if any of them see him as ‘reasonable’.

These days ‘Sir’ Aqbal Sacranie, he is also chairman of the ‘charity’ organisation Muslim Aid. Aiding and abetting him in this fine calling is our Locog board member Mohammed Abdul Bari. Muslim Aid is self-admittedly a close partner of the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe, and has channelled funds to eight organisations linked to the terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It has studiedly refused to deny allegations that it has siphoned monies to organisations linked to Hamas in particular, notably the Islamic Society of Nuseirat, the Islamic Society of Khan Younis, the Islamic Centre of Gaza, the Islamic al-Salah in Gaza, and the Khan Younis Zakat Committee.

In late 2010, British security sources passed evidence to the Daily Telegraph showing documentary evidence of sums passed since 2005 to the Hamas-linked Islamic University of Gaza, and the al-Ihsan Charitable Society with links to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. The Telegraph also showed how Muslim Aid had flagrantly broken the laws concerning charitable status by extensively funding the MCB. This is contrary not just to charity law, but also to Muslim Aid’s fine-sounding mission, which is “to relieve the poor, the elderly, children and all those who are in need in any part of the world as a result of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, famines, epidemics, poverty and plagues, to relieve those who are refugees fleeing from war zones and war victims.” Hard to imagine that the MCB – a powerful lobbying organisation based in Britain where earthquakes and plagues are hard to come by – matches any of those headings.

Now, whatever she has inherited from the Fluffies, Theresa May is the Home Secretary, and the security organisations around her are tasked with the increasingly complex job of protecting us from violent religious lunatics. So why was this prominent Islamist fellow-traveller and consistent dissembler of the truth about radical Islam allowed to take part in the decision about the choice of G4S as the security company for the Games – a company that has turned out to be woefully unable to fulfil its contract? If he opposes the unveiling of female face-coverings, why on Earth does he have anything to contribute to an Olympic gathering in which women will compete wearing zero headware and shorts halfway up their thighs? If Dr Mohammed Bari had his way, women would not be allowed to compete in the Games at all.

The Slog thinks he should be asked to resign, and questions asked in Parliament in relation to any security surveillance of his activities since being appointed to the Board of Locog….and what they have shown. The latter of these will not, of course, happen, because Cameron will three-line his Party not to support it in fear of horrible embarassment, and Miliband’s Labour would rather chew glass than damn an Islamist…or reopen the can of worms about which clown thought it would be a good idea to give Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari access to detailed security information in relation to the London Olympic Games.

34 thoughts on “SHAMBOLYMPICS: Why is the boss of the East London Mosque on the management board of Locog?”

“BBC pays the Jizya out of licence fee payers’ money
“Cranmer is simmering with rage – the thumos type, not the orge, though it may soon become so. He reported a few months ago that the corporation had offered the MCB the princely sum of £30,000 and an apology for remarks made by Charles Moore on 12th March, when Question Time was debating the protests in Luton of a group of Islamic extremists during a homecoming parade by the Royal Anglian Regiment. These professing Muslims heckled the troops and waved placards which read ‘Butchers of Basra’ and ‘British Government: Terrorist Government’. Charles Moore simply criticised the leadership of MCB for failing to condemn the killing and kidnapping of British soldiers overseas: thus, he averred, do they tacitly support such atrocity. The reason is manifest; the logic impeccable. Cranmer was incensed then. Now he has a deep, inward feeling of anger.

Thanks for this latest posting. I ‘ve just found this as well.
“The Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings be upon him) approved smacking of one’s child for not performing compulsory prayer when they reach the age of ten”

I’m going to research Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari some more, as I am very concerned about how much authority this man has had over the nation’s children now.
I am also wondering if he has got anything at all to do with the Bollywood Business Club, I know Mick Gradwell of Jersey Police did, and he is the man who both ignored the rape of children by muslim gangs, and also was involved in colluding to cover up the child abuse at Haut de la garenne,

Lyndon Johnson said it was better to have the camel inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. There are beaucoup bad guys around, a touts azimuths, and I don’t doubt some are planning something over the next 6 weeks. But I am also confident that the security services are bugging, infiltrating and doing what it takes to minimise things. Who knows, Bari could be a double agent.If not someone around him will be.

Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to holiday in a country where sunshine was absolutely guaranteed. It was also quite popular with the muslim fraternity and I was privileged to witness at close quarters the presence of a number of muslim ladies who were clad head to foot in black burqas – the ones with the “letter-box” arrangement.

The contrast with western mores could not have been better illustrated. European ladies wearing next to nothing disporting themselves in the swimming pools while their black-clad sisters sweated quietly in a secluded corner. The muslim husband, of course, wore shorts and flip-flops and enjoyed himself thoroughly, lasciviously eyeing up the bronzed beauties as he pretended to play with his children. The chauvinistic bastard. Whoops, sorry John … bit judgmental there.

Anyway, one of the little high points of the all-too-short break was in the buffet restaurant; one of the burqa clad wives unobtrusively selected a few morsels and ignored my insistence that she go before me at the bread counter. She made her way to a table near ours a little later on. Her husband came in a few minutes later with a plate piled high with vittles and looked about for his wife. Unfortunately, there were a small number of burqas dotted hither and yon and his confusion was palpable. I confess freely that I enjoyed a small smile at this point and was kicked sharply on the shin by the Memsahib for my pains. He sat at an unoccupied table and refused to eat until his wife had noticed him and meekly made her way to his table.

I know that in the “multi-cultural” regime under which we live I’m not supposed to criticise another culture. Well bollocks to that. The appalling treatment of one half of humanity by the other transcends any religious niceties. I saw the lacklustre look in her eyes and wondered what sort of holiday she was having, and I wanted to forcibly clothe her husband head to foot in black and insist he complete his holiday in it as the temperatures regularly hit the mid-forties.

Apologies for what has turned into a bit of a mini-rant John, but it seems to me that organised religion has brought more misery into the world over the centuries than just about anything else. It has no place in a truly civilised society.

Totally agree with you. Especially the biblical religions are filled with blood and torture (Christianity and Islam – en masse). Christianity seems to have filled it’s dark historic cycle (Dark Ages 500-1500 CE). Fortunately west found a way back to ancient “logic” again….
Islam was always the darkest of the three biblical religions, and presently is moving more and more into extremes. Let alone the suppression of their own societies in Middle East (and elsewhere), Europe faces the danger of becoming Europistan. We have been sold to petrodollars….

Islam,Judaism,Catholicism,Calvinism and more are useful figleafs for the nastiness of men on each other.What they truly teach of God is ignored and the rituals are hidden behind as well as the culture,which are all suitably mixed to cause confusion.

There is no proof that God does not exist either. Of all the faiths Christianity calls most for non violence, certainly in the case of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The interpretation and actions undertaken in ‘their name’ by man is the problem. Many, many moons ago, Christianity provided the ‘good path’ guidance for people to tread. As now, it was mainly the wealthy and the powerful who corrupted the good parts in order to ensure that they themselves were an acception to the rules for the minions. Many did (what we would see as an evil) out of their true desire to save the souls of those who did not agree or accept the ‘truth’.
The enlightenment pretty much changed all that, and yet, even without religion dominating the nations psyche, we see the same happening again with only the burning stakes currently missing from the stage of society.

I defend the Christian religion, not because I am religious but because it is (since the enlightenment been) that which melded our culture into what it once was. England, though a great power in history spread its way across the globe and in the main, took with it, its enlightened society. The enlightenment is being reversed and the dark ages being returned by those who would see Christianity destroyed in favour of ‘mankind being inherently good’ (and every belief being equal, as in…equally bad). We only need to look at the ‘elite’ to see this is not so !

There are good men and women. They do good works and add considerably to the sum of human happiness whether they subscribe to a particular religion or not is entirely irrelevant; they are good despite the religious overtones, not because of. When they attribute their goodness to Jesus or to Mohammed or Obi-Wan Kenobi they do themselves a considerable disservice, It is their selflessness and integrity that is brought to play.

This is why I tried to emphasise the ‘organised’ in religion. As a method of controlling the masses it takes some beating. Trading on their fear of eternal damnation unless they toe the line is one of the best scams of all times, and has earnt the established churches a fortune over the centuries. Barclays et al should be tipping their hats in respect …

Despite our incredible accomplishments, creativity and kindness there is a dark side of humanity that has nothing to do with religion. I have always disagreed with fellow atheists that if religions were banned, things would be better. Eliminating religion will not eliminate evil. Thomas Jefferson said, There is no better agent for social control than organized religion – and he meant that in terms of a peaceful, civilized society.

All this religious philosophy, good versus evil, Christianity v mohamedism, God or no God, is all very well, but while you chat away, the funeral pyre is being heaped higher with every passing day. Nobody seems to think it necessary to find an answer to the self-evident threat of Islam. ‘Islam’ means ‘submission’ by the way.

Describing the US Government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the World Trade Center bombing” does not constitute inciting hatred, regardless of the platform it’s delivered. It’s a conspiracy theory, and one that as many non muslims subscribe to as do muslims.

christianity preaches non-violence and has historically permitted this doctrine to be exploited by government in order to submit enslaved colonies to systematic and horrific abuse – enlightenment my backside.

for charles moore to criticize a group for failing to condemn the armed forces of sovereign nations for killing and capturing those who invade them for commercial gain is positively preposterous and the bbc rightly deserves to be whacked with a whacking great fine.

the main problem with this piece is the description of dr mohammed bari as a “trojan-horse”; how can this islamic supporter of organised state-suppression be a “trojan” when, as a member of the locog committee, he is in the veritably bad company of a host of fellow (christian) fans of the very same strain of state-sponsored suppression. here in the west, we are currently engaged in an immoral war of aggression-cum-exploitation against muslim countries in the middle-east, yet the british government has had the brass-necked impudence to pretentiously host the most prestigious party of peace-and-love, the olympic games – thus the event has been blatantly politicized for the purposes of pro-war propaganda in a way not seen since 1936.

outside of establishment circles, london 2012 became an ethical embarrassment to the common british citizen from day-one, and in fact to support the games has become inexorably unconscionable, since the sports-spectacle is now full-square synonymous with the third-way fascism which britain and america shamelessly peddle as democracy.

if dr mohammed bari is backing the london 2012 olympics, he is also, by association, backing the west’s ongoing war of suppression being waged against muslim peoples in the middle-east – and i am compelled to conclude therefore that dr bari is neither an islamic fundamentalist, extremist, nor holy jihadist, but a deeply conservative muslim who supports state-oppression, in whatever religious or ideological guise, wherever on the globe it happens to rear its ugly unholy head. furthermore, i would hazard a guess that dr bari is, no doubt, one of those muslims who blindly backs and ingratiates himself with the labour party regardless of its horrendous hierarchical failure to either apologize for the iraq war or atone for that atrocity by expelling those members of parliament who voted for it.

in summary, taking what i’ve learnt of dr mohammed bari from this slog article, i’d describe him as a prospective political collaborator with any evil-bandwagon which might trundle down the road.

I suppose most Muslims think that Islam means submission to God. But the leaders of world religions have declared themselves to be gods – that is why they live in palaces and mansions. If you are a church leader I don’t see how you have any right to live in a mansion whilst even one person in your community lives in povery and squalor. Jesus Christ was a sort of a tramp.

john ward, this post is wishy-washy in the extreme, you should be utterly ashamed of yourself – both you and the radical reporter gilligan have provided no evidence whatsoever which links this, albeit distastefully authoritarian man, to any actual or proven violent religious fundamentalists. what a bunch of islamophobic trash it is too.

i abhor all organized religions (including christianity) together with the freedom-allergic messages which many of their preachers expound, but this guy seems to have as close ties with our own very british apologists for immoral war and oppression (such as lord coe on the locog committee) as with any of his dodgy-mouthed muslim colleagues packing unpalatable opinions.

dr bari’s muslim fellow-travellers have not pulled the trigger on anyone any more than the despicably war-mongering lord coe has. when free-speech is outlawed in the united kingdom, then our country and culture will surely be dead, dumb and finished aswell. well guess what? free-speech has now evaporated here in britain, and british culture is just waiting for the life-support machine to be switched-off forever.